19-04-2025
Katy ISD student develops online tool to help blind students
The Brief
Research suggests most visually-challenged students can fall behind in school at a young age due to lack of resources.
When faced with a blind peer who could not participate in group activities, Crystal Yang developed a tool to include the challenged student.
KATY, Texas - A Katy ISD senior is making a name for herself and charting a future of success, all before she graduates from high school or goes to college.
When students at Katy ISD's Tompkins High School would play the online word-puzzle, Wordle, against each other, one friend was left out because of her blindness.
Crystal Yang thought she could help, and used her computer science expertise to create an audible version of the game to help her friend.
Based on that success, Yang was inspired to go even further, developing a suite of games and exercises that are designed to help visually-impaired students with the kinds of lessons that their sighted peers regularly get.
is a non-profit organization designed as an educational platform for blind and visually impaired students, K-8, to learn. Yang crowdsourced a team of volunteers from around the world, along with $50,000 in grants, to help develop and market the program to schools and educators. Already, it has been adopted by a handful of institutions that specialize in instructing blind students.
Yang hopes to, ultimately, to have it in use in all 50 states, reaching one of every five visually-impaired students.
What they're saying
"An interest of mine is business, start-ups and non-profits, so I wanted to see how I could take that project and scale it into something bigger that can help people on a bigger scale," says Crystal Yang, of "It's so insane that the thing I built has so many supporters, and I'm so excited that I get to be part of something this cool."
The Source
Journal of Blindness Innovation and Research.
